Alternate History
by Shoiryu
Summary: Small AU. He takes his guns and his wits and everything he's learned and he goes in to meet the serpent himself...


**ALTERNATE HISTORY**

The memory is very distant, but it is there, the sound of her voice in quiet song, not Russian and not English either, but something Eastern and exotic. He can feel her heart beating against his body, because he is still young and small enough to be held; it's warm in his past, and quiet, and calm, and she sings to him with love and with patience. His father does not speak to interrupt but he is there all the same, like a cool breeze lingering just on the edge of perception, moving close every once in a while to brush fingers across his face in wonder at the miracle the two of them have worked together. His mother smiles when he comes close.

Those very early days are a distant thing now, but not unwelcome.

He is very young when she first puts a gun in his hands, but he has not forgotten what she told him. "This is not for play," she says, crouched to meet him on eye level, as an equal. Her hands cover his and the weapon as well, holding it down. "Do you know what it's for?" He takes a moment to think about it, not because he doesn't know the answer, but because he wants to give it in the right way. "It kills," he says finally, and just beyond his mother he can see his father turn to watch in earnest.

He can tell by her expression that he's answered incorrectly. She does not look angry, only solemn, and though this is common for her the disappointment is not.

"The gun doesn't kill," she tells him, carefully taking it from his small fingers. "The person holding it does that."

She does not try again for a year, but by then he's come to understand why.

His family beyond his parents is strange and off color. He grows up learning about edible plants and how to climb trees at maximum speed, listening to stories about the wonder of bees and butterflies who make the world grow with their tiny fluttering motions, hearing about constellations and rockets and worlds beyond his own blossoming imagination. Among his family there are titles and names alike, and so to save confusion he avoids both. His parents' brothers are Uncle, _dyadya_, and sometimes friend. When he grows frightened in the dark there are always arms to hold him, someone to assure him that the creatures of the night mean him no harm. There is always some great shoulder upon which to perch, someone to laugh in approval when he does something childish for attention or to tell him "no" before he does something foolish.

Beneath his mother's care and his father's quiet watchfulness, the lessons of his uncles and the vast outside world they show him, he grows up strong and confident, assured of his place and his ability. He learns the meaning of a gun, the purpose of a knife, the responsibility of handling both; he understands bullets and bombs and open fists and people too, though while his mother insists that all these things go together naturally, his father shakes his head later, and murmurs in his patient voice, "People are very different from weapons. People are not tools to be used."

When crisis comes to call upon his family again he is twenty, young and powerful and ready to stand in that strange alliance; there is evil to be stamped out, and it is his mother to whom the world turns with pleading, hopeful eyes. He knows why, and he can see in his mother's smile that she knows, too.

"I want to join you in Tselinoyarsk," he tells her importantly, two nights before the departure, but the look she gives him is steel.

"Not there," she says, and touches his face as though he is something precious and hard-won, something she isn't willing to let go of just yet. "Not there. Not this time."

And he calls her _mama_ in the accent of his father's native tongue, and closes his eyes and leans against her while she kisses his face and touches his hair.

His father grasps his shoulders before they leave, and kisses his cheek, a thing he's never done before and probably never will again. The meaning of it is not lost on him at all, and though he does not cry- men don't cry, after all- his father pauses, and turns, and smiles at him, eyes genuinely red beneath the shadow of his hood.

"We will see you again."

He learns the next day that his family is not infallible; the news of destruction and blown cover reaches him through the network at his disposal, and he wonders if she knew that this would happen. He has been told to stay but there is an agent on the hunt now, and he will not stand by and wait for the hounds.

He takes his guns and his wits and everything he's learned and he goes in to meet the serpent himself, to determine friend or foe or simply another body at his feet. He knows what he does is defiant and he no longer cares. He believes strongly enough in the power of himself to stand up in the face of adversity.

"And what do they call you?" asks the Snake, as around them the birds call and his ears identify them by their sound, as in the distance there is the rumble of machinery within a great fortress. The other man sounds tired and wary, and there is a guard to his stance that says that this too, for him, is personal. His mother's disciple, revealed by the familiar steel in his eyes and in the tense of his muscles.

"Ocelot," he says, giving the name he's chosen for himself, the swift and nimble jungle cat, sharp-eyed and sharp-clawed. "I'm here to help you."

"Help me what?" demands the Snake, impatient and even more cautious than before; Ocelot grins, and unholsters a gun, giving it an expert spin, showing off his own prowess.

"Help you complete your mission," he replies, and flips the weapon from one hand to the other, catching it at last with a firm click to emphasis just how seriously he takes what he's saying. "Help you save The Boss."

His mother's rescuer is startled, obviously, but Ocelot only continues to smile, aware that he is the son of his parents, aware of the power it gives him. "Come on," he says, before the Snake can reply. "I've got a few things in mind." Cocky, yes, but true. Of course he's come prepared. He holds out his right hand for a handshake, the symbolic forging of a partnership.

And after a moment the man nods, and takes his hand, and they shake.


End file.
